Maryborough jail to be scrutinised

A CORONER will examine why a murderer was kept in the same Maryborough prison unit as a young Bundaberg man who would become the victim of his second fatal attack.

State Coroner Terry Ryan will also examine the adequacy of Maryborough Correctional Centre's facilities and procedures for placing prisoners into protective custody.

He will further look at why investigating police were not given a report from a prison dog squad officer just hours before the attack suggesting the removal of a gym equipment box, from which the murderer picked his weapon.

Gregory George Glebow, 39, has been jailed until at least 2044 for killing Leonard Raymond Gordon, 22, with a chin-up bar, violently and without provocation, in the jail's exercise yard at 2.41pm on October 9, 2012.

They were both in protective custody, though Mr Gordon had a non-violent background and Glebow had a history of predatory behaviour towards other prisoners in the form of physical and sexual assaults.

Glebow was serving a life sentence for murder and was in protective custody because there was a threat to his safety from other Maryborough prisoners.

Mr Gordon could have been classified as low-risk and moved to a different facility but feared he would be too far away for regular family visits.

Peter Johns, counsel assisting the coroner, told a pre-inquest conference yesterday (THURSDAY) the inquest, which will be held in Bundaberg, would hear Mr Gordon became eligible for release several months prior to his death but the parole board deemed each release address he submitted unsuitable.

Mr Gordon's full-time release date was two days after his death.

"Why (Glebow) was housed in the same unit as a young non-violent prisoner like Mr Gordon has already been the subject of review within Queensland Corrective Services, but it's my submission it's also a proper issue for this inquest to examine whether that internal review and changes made in response have been adequate," Mr Johns told Brisbane Coroners Court.

He said the coroner also should examine why the report about the box of gym equipment being dangerous, made at 8.45am on the day of Mr Gordon's death, was not given to investigating police.

He said that note was made in the context that officers were searching for weapons after hearing some prisoners in Mr Gordon's unit might have concealed weapons to be used in a planned fight with prisoners from another unit.

"He says he raised the issue of this box and its potential (for) the items in it to be used by prisoners as weapons with a supervisor and that he later spoke to the accommodation manager in relation to the same issue," Mr Johns said.

"The report indicates he was advised the equipment would be removed on the basis of the concerns he had raised.

"The evidence shows that at 2.41pm that day, the equipment was still in the exercise yard."